Friday, November 26, 2010

These are not my people.

So the local TeeWee station was covering the annual 0mygod30 stampede at the gates of the local temples of commerce, as people poured though the doors, crowded into the aisles, and herded into shuffling checkout lines so long that their ends were lost in the distant haze. News chopper footage gleefully covered the tangled snarl of traffic around the big mall and its environs. A TV crew directed their lens and mic at some guy in the crowd and asked him a question and his response was "Well, I'm gonna save 'bout a hunnert bucks so, yeah, it's worth it."

And I thought to myself "I would gladlypaya hundred dollars to avoid that mess."

I'm assuming the commenters in the Ivory Towers haven't lost half their household income this year. Mrs. W. here suddenly did so when her regional company got sold to a global in April, closing her office and job. Thankfully she is employed again but at about 2/3rds the salary.

Try losing a 60K job out of your household income; don't replace until six months later with a 40K job. I do know that some of you don't even have half or a third that for a household income; regionally, we're barely lower-middle-class and seriously struggled this year to stay afloat.

For some of us not-so-mighty or holy, being able to get a true Rival Crock pot for only a few dollars is indeed worth getting up at 0300 for. Being able to save a 'hunert' dollars can make the difference in eating v. starving, or heating v. freezing, for some of us, and still being able to put on a bit of a show for Festivus.

I know that's not what Tam meant by her post, but the 'holier than thou' commenters are missing the point. Such lack of empathy or intelligence among commenters is not the norm at VFTP.

I hate lines and crowds. Viscerally. It is physically unpleasant to me.

Imagine how you would feel if somebody tapped on the side of your head over and over and over and over and over and over again and there was nothing you could do to make them stop. That's how unpleasant being at, say, Best Buy today would be for me. If it's not that unpleasant for you to be around crowds like thatm than go on and enjoy! I know a lot of other people seem to actually enjoy the company of crowds of their fellow humans; I see stands full of them at sporting events all the time.

I would rather get cut with a razor a few times than be jammed arsehole-to-elbow with the teeming hordes all day. Thankfully, there are other ways for me to do my Festivus shopping. :)

I'm not huge on crowds myself, but I did leave the house at 6:30am to get a few items that I had planned to buy and happened to be on sale. The crowds around here were non-existent. The only line I had to wait in was at HHGreg and that was only because their checkout system was as well designed as a TSA checkpoint.

What og said. If times are that tough, you aren't looking for a "real brand-name anything" -- you're saving your money by not spending it.

After decades spent living without the doodads most of our civilization considers necessity, I'm still constantly & deeply amazed at how much money people waste at Christmas by buying crap they don't need for people they don't like.

I work in that special Hell that is retail. I rang up more sales the first 2 hours than I have in the entire previous week. And the actual cash amount may be enough to pay our bills through the rest of the year.Black Friday indeed. May it continue. OK, Lunch over. Back to the salt mines.

I'm with John Elder Robison, who said on hs blog that on the Wednesday before T-giving, he prays that when he wakes up the next morning, that it'll already be January 2nd. Except he doesn't actually, not being a praying man.

Tam, I feel the same way as you only I tend to get real annoyed as well. It's as close to a good reason for laws against concealed carry as I can think of. For me anyway. The thought of getting bashed by 20 irate women with large handbags keeps my mouth closed and elbows tucked in close, instead of perhaps pumping a couple of rounds into the ceiling to, you know, clear a little space.

I think I'll get my yah-yahs out by heading over to SociopathWorld.com. If there's one thing Aspies and Socios have in common, it's bitching and complaining about the "normals", silly irrational doodahs that they are, mostly.

Tam, I share your crowd-phobia. If it is a phobia; what's rational about *not* being scared of strangers, many of them screaming nuts, pressing close to your back?

Ancient Woodsman, I haven't been in financial distress for a very long time, but I remember back when I was supporting a family of 4 on an E-3 salary. Usually the smart thing was to *not* buy that crockpot, even at 50% off. If we truly needed a crockpot, we could wait until someone else would buy it and donate their old one to the thrift store...